Online school for children in remote parts of Bangladesh wins UN award

As a university graduate, Korvi Rakshand wanted nothing more than to help break the cycle of poverty in his native Bangladesh by teaching children on the margins of society.

He rented a single room in a slum for his lessons and provided half a kilo of rice a day to parents as a way of encouraging them to send their children to class.

A decade on, what started as a hobby has led to a network of 10 online schools and three regular schools which aim to give thousands of children in remote areas of the South Asian country of 163 million an education via technology and the internet.

“What we’ve done is not rocket science but the thing is no one ever tried it. It’s a very simple system,” said Rakshand, whose JAAGO Foundation was the joint recipient this week of a $25,000 United Nations award for innovation in education.

Even though primary education is free in Bangladesh, only half of all children in the country’s slums attend school, a rate 18% lower than the national average, according to the UN children’s agency UNICEF.

Rakshand said initially lessons were delivered over Skype, a messaging and video call service.

But now teachers in the capital Dhaka use interactive video conferencing to present live tutorials, analyse charts and watch educational videos with students in remote areas.

“For the kids, someone appearing on a television is like a celebrity, so the kids love the concept that they’re talking to a television and there’s someone from the capital who’s probably famous teaching them and giving them time,” Rakshand told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

About JAAGO Foundation

Providing education to underprivileged children and empowering youths in Bangladesh.

Founded in 2007. 2500 students at 13 schools. 22,000 volunteers.

Online School uses technology to connect local classroom teacher to JAAGO teaching centre in Dhaka.

Ensuring inclusive and quality education for all is one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by UN member states in 2015 as part of an ambitious agenda to end global poverty by 2030.

Yet millions of children and adults around the world have little or no access to education due to war, poverty and displacement, experts say.

To address the deficit, non-profits and others are increasingly harnessing technology to reach disadvantaged communities and plug gaps in traditional education systems.

Promoting learning among refugees who have fled turmoil in countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan can transform their lives, according to Kiron, a non-governmental organisation whose work providing refugees with free access to higher education was also recognised by the prize from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Based in Germany, the NGO runs an online platform that allows refugees to sign up to accounting, engineering and other courses by logging on via their smartphones from anywhere in the world, including camps and shelters.

More than 2000 students have enrolled in the courses working with 27 partner universities across Germany, France, Turkey and Jordan.

“For refugees that are in a new society, it’s a lot about their identity of feeling like a student and not like a refugee anymore, and just having fun with each other,” said Markus Kressler, co-founder of Kiron.

Kressler said Kiron had been inundated with requests from volunteers and academics who wanted to offer their services to the online university.

“They (refugees) need just one shot in order to start a new life,” he said. “We need to give everyone a fair chance.”

Despite the success of such projects, internet connection remains a challenge, according to Rakshand, who said JAAGO had considered introducing online classes in Sierra Leone and Nepal but faced limited bandwidth in those countries.